1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to carbon management, and more specifically, the invention relates to carbon management for sourcing and logistics.
2. Background Art
An accelerating rate of change in the amounts of trace gases in the earth's atmosphere has the potential to modify the earth's energy balance, which may result in a variety of consequences. These trace gases are often referred to as greenhouse gases and include carbon dioxide. Although there is disagreement concerning the potential threats or benefits of this change, there is widespread agreement in the global community that it is prudent to enact policies to attempt to slow down the rate of change. At the same time, research is underway to predict the consequences of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations and to develop the technology to economically limit those increases. All current protocols have established emission reduction targets that define 1990 as the base year and specify reductions as a fractional percentage of emission rates during that base year.
Energy and carbon emission management in logistics has become one of the top priorities in green practices. Typical logistics optimization only considers the direct monetary costs and other traditional performance measures such as customer service. Optimal logistics policies can be significantly different with the inclusion of broader environmental costs, and constraints.